Tuesday, 17 April 2012

The 2kDozen 500: #141 - Sebastien Tellier, "My God Is Blue"

He is Ulysess 31 made flesh. Everything about the man is galaxial disco swoon. And now he's only gawn and brought out a new album.

He sounds all sad and grandiose as though he was the last Frenchman in space, shot off like terran humanseed to populate the distant planets with his hairy self. "Russian Attractions" in particular jets off into that astral direction. "Yes, It's Possible" starts out with massive Captain Nemo pomp and heft, before the Mogadon guitars drifts across as on a festival breeze. A thousand tear-stained Eighties high-school movie geeks letting his fingers run though their misery to create long clouds of crystalline cool. The single "Pepito Bleu" has choirs, for fuck's sake, and a drum sound the size of a star cruiser and Seb cracks out his best low end Leonard Cohen rumble. The music of scale.

"Draw Your World" ramps and amps things up even further - there's wailing poodle rock guitar, a slow palatial bass throb and some seriously retro-sounding electronic washes. Irony pours off his back like it's on holiday. "Against the Law" has an agreeable Kraftwerk-like shuffle and some breathy French, which always lends a Europhile sheen to any occasion. Like Ferrero Rocher. It builds up like a sexy version of river silt, as a geographical version of Paddy McGuiness might suggest.

It ends with a distant cosmic throb. Perhaps if he didn't have a beard, I wouldn't invest so much good thought into him. But he does, doesn't he?